


To Lose Oneself

by skele_smol



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: ALL OF THE WARNINGS, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Crime, Drama, Drug Dealing, Dubious Consent, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Forced Prostitution, Gets dark before it gets better, Gritty, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Sex, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, Rock Bottom - Freeform, Theft, Trigger words, Triggers, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, juvenile delinquency, more tags to come, triggering language, troubled youth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21761848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skele_smol/pseuds/skele_smol
Summary: ~On Hiatus til Further Notice~You play the cards life deals you. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. For Clementine it seems like she's always holding a losing hand. Kicked to the curb by life and bounced through the foster system, the one time she finally feels like she's holding the winning hand, her temper rips it away from her.Sent away to help her learn how to manage to underlying root of her temper, she instead finds herself rejecting help, surrounding herself with other damaged youths and falling deeper down the rabbit hole. Difficulties become trouble, and trouble becomes criminal, and it's only so long that she and her new friends can keep running to avoid the repercussions for their actions.But there is always a way back. It's just that sometimes, in order to find yourself, first you must lose yourself.To Lose Oneself is a sister story to To Find Oneself written by TheWalkingDanni
Relationships: Aasim/Ruby (Walking Dead: Done Running), Brody/Marlon (Walking Dead: Done Running), Clementine/Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running), Minerva/Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running)
Comments: 43
Kudos: 70





	1. No more chances.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhhhh. Too long away from the fandom with fics. And way too long since I have written anything outside of smut (yes, more smut is coming).
> 
> This fic kinda jumped out of nowhere after talking with TheWalkingDanni about one of her story ideas, and she very graciously agreed to let me run with my darker ideas, while she writes a lighter rendition.
> 
> This is my official warning. This story will deal with some very dark themes and scary subjects, where our beloved characters will be faced with some really, really dark and difficult situations. With each having to either hit rock bottom or face up to their mistakes in order to turn their lives around.
> 
> Original idea by TheWalkingDanni who not only allowed, agreed and encouraged me to write this, but is also my amazing beta. Look out for her original, and less horrifying story: To Find Oneself which is coming soon.

**To Lose Oneself.**

**Chapter.1: No more chances.**

“This is bullshit!”

The front door groans as it bounces off the wall. Rattling furiously in its frame, stunned by the violence of the swing. The sharp clap of wood slamming against wood slices through the tense atmosphere like a knife as the teenager swept herself through the entrance on a gale of curls and venomous words.

“Utter bullshit!”

A mostly empty knapsack hits the wall next. Thread worn canvas slithering down to lie limp upon the floor in a boneless puddle of zips, straps and worn out pins. Flung away in fury before shaking fingers found their way to the bannister and tightened into a white knuckled fist. Behind the fuming teen, a man in his mid-thirties bends to retrieve the discarded bag, his suit rumpled and his dark eyes gentle if glazed over with exhaustion.

“We’ve discussed the cussing before, Clem. There’s a time and place, and neither is now.”

The teen, Clem, rolls her eyes as she pivots around on the stair. Her smokey orbs narrowing sharply at the man standing a few steps below her, his own eyes imploring her to calm down. The warmth and softness in them seeming to do little more than bolster her rage.

“The time and place is exactly now, Lee.” She spat back. Her arms fold up over her chest, fingers curling and flexing in and out of tight fists. “Fucking expulsion? For what?! What the hell did I do to deserve that?”

Exasperated, Lee closes his eyes slowly. Thick fingers pressing to his eyelids as he sighs. “You were fighting. _Again_.”

Sneaker scuffing against the bannister rail, Clem argues back. “So? It was my second callout though.” Scowling as she watches another few flakes of dirty white paint peel free and flutter beneath her toe. “That’s supposed to be suspension, not expulsion. That’s not how the disciplinary system works. They fucked me!”

Again Lee sighs. The girl was technically right, and it infuriated him that she knew the disciplinary routine of the education system so intimately. If this had been just like any other fight that she’d been involved in, she most likely _would_ have simply been put on suspension, but because of the severity of this particular incident, the school had been forced to take more drastic measures. “Usually, yes. But not this time. Christ, Clementine, you’re lucky the boys parents didn’t press charges against you. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was _‘thinking’_ that that limp-dicked asshole had no right to put his hands on anyone the way he did to that poor girl.”

Dragging his hands over his face, Lee groans heavily into his palms. “For God’s sake. It’s not up to you to get involved! Why couldn’t you just have reported it to a teacher? That's what they’re ther-”

“What they’re there for?!” The teen sneered, lips tightening around the words in a thin feral smirk as she parroted the school’s “zero tolerance” slogan right back at the man. “Yeah, right. Do you know how many times he had been reported for harassment?”

“No.” Lee sighed. “No, I don’t.”

“Six.”

“Six?”

“Six!” Clementine resumes kicking at the banister, her scowl hardening as the paint chips continue to fall from the battered wood, yielding to her abuse. “Six goddamned times. And do you know how many times he’s been made to knock his shit off and face up to the consequences?”

The beat of silence that followed stretches uncomfortably tight, like rubber band ready to snap. Until Lee lets out a softer sigh, this one less exasperated than the last. “Clem-”

“Never, Lee. Not. Even. Once!” Clementine reluctantly lifts her eyes from her assault on the flimsy structure. “There are six girls, _at least_ , in that school that he has harassed or grabbed or victimized in some way and nobody cares. Nobody was even _trying_ to stop him. So I did.” She snorts bitterly. “And I’m apparently the unreasonable one?”

“You punched him in the throat, Clementine.” Lee murmurs quietly, his voice low and unsettlingly soft. “That’s not just unreasonable, that’s excessive.”

Clementine’s shoulders lift then drop in a dismissive shrug. “Call it whatever. Fact is, he’ll think twice next time.”

The man pushes his hands deep into his pockets to hide how his fingers curled, his own rising temper manifesting itself as fists. “Well then, I guess you’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you? That boy learns his lesson. You’re a hero to those girls-” His brows twitch and draw down low in response to the smug grin on the teens lips. “But what about you? Where are you in all this mess?”

Clementine’s smirk falters, shrinking down to a confused pout. “What do you mean? Like you said, I’m a hero.”

“How long do you think you’ll be remembered as a hero for what you did, or why you did it? The principal will call an assembly and tell the students that there was an incident. Your name will be dragged through the mud, Clem, not his. This is your third school in less than a year, and the seventh time I’ve had to leave work in the middle of class to come get you. This can’t go on.” With a flick of his wrist, he checks his watch before scratching his nails through the neat scruff on his chin. “I need to get back to my students.” He says quietly, as though to himself before his gaze slides over to Clementine, still standing on the stairs. “You, young lady, are grounded for the foreseeable future. No hanging out with your friends. No social media. Hand over your phone!” He held out his hand.

“What?!”

“You heard me. Hand. Over. Your. Phone. Now, Clementine.” His open palm bounces with his repeated order, punctuating each word with the impatient gesture as she hesitated. “Don’t test my patience.”

“Ok this thing happening right now, is also bullshit, Lee!” Clementine screeches, even as she digs her cell out of her pocket and slaps it as hard as she could into his waiting palm. “This isn't fair!”

Ignoring the protests of his teenaged ward, Lee scowls at the device in his hand. His thumbs tap away furiously while Clementine continues ranting about the unfairness of everything. Her furious words fading into senseless noise until Lee felt a triumphant little flutter in his chest. Satisfied that he had completed his task in limiting Clementine’s cell privileges, he hands the device back to the fuming girl. “Until you can learn to talk to me about things, this and all of your other devices will be under parental restrictions. You can call me or text me whenever but everything else is off limits until then.”

“Talk to you?” Clementine could feel her glare hardening and herself growing angrier with every word that left Lee’s mouth. She blinked furiously, her vision swimming, in an effort to keep the humiliating tears at bay as she shoved the phone back into her pocket. “What’s the point in talking to you when you don’t listen to me?! You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“I am listening to you, Clem. Just because I don’t agree with how you think, or what you do, doesn’t mean I'm not on your side.” Squaring his jaw, Lee forces himself to meet her gaze at last, his throat suddenly drying and tightening under the intensity of the betrayal burning in her eyes. “But things have got to change. You can’t keep fighting me at every turn. When I get home from work we can talk again, ok? Figure out what we’re gonna do next.”

“Why bother?” The girl snaps, turning smartly on her heel and racing up the stairs. “It’s not like you’ll listen to me anyway. Just do whatever the fuck you’re gonna do and leave me the hell alone!”

Lee blinks slowly at the now vacant spot on the steps where Clementine had been standing less than a minute ago, flinching when he hears her slam through her bedroom door and hurl it shut behind her.

He loves Clementine dearly, he really does. Couldn’t love her more even if she were his own flesh and blood. But he knows, over these last few years, that he has been floundering with raising her. He knows that she’s had such a rough start in life. Her father killed in front of her eyes. Her mother, lost to her own grief, surrendering her to CPS at nine years old, before drifting through the care system. Being bounced around from one foster home to another until he had decided to offer her a home at eleven years old.

He had hoped that the stability he had brought in to her life would have helped her manage her problems, a child as young as she had been should not be so angry. But over the years her temper had only worsened. And then, with the onset of puberty, he now had a sixteen year old firestorm on his hands. A whirlwind of anger, hurt and hormones for him to learn how to handle. And now, after this latest blow up between them coming out of nowhere, he was finally having to face up to the fact that he just couldn't manage her, not on his own, not anymore.

When the first pulse of heavy bass thumps through the ceiling, he takes it as an opportunity to slip noiselessly out of the house and back into his car. Safely shut within the beat up old ford, he sucks a long, slow breath through his teeth, held it for a moment before sighing it out through his nose and sinks down until his forehead touches the steering wheel. What is he doing that’s so wrong? After a few moments of quiet, lost deep in his conflicting thoughts, Lee bites into his lip and jiggles the key in the ignition. And when he pulls away from his little house, the first threads of an idea weave together in his mind.

An idea that he really didn’t like where it was headed.

\------------------------------------------------------------

Slowly, Clementine shifts on top of her bed, the thick comforter wrinkling and bunching beneath her back as she shuffles to find a comfortable position to lie in. Voice grumbling quietly under her breath when something in her shoulder twinges. The ache is dull but irritating, only burning with just enough pressure for it to be an annoyance rather than actually painful. It just sits there, between her shoulder blade and spine, a tiny marble of discomfort. Slowly, she curls her body toward her knees, stretching out the tension before flopping backwards again, her head dangling upside down over the edge of her bed. Her eyes roll back toward the lit up screen of her cellphone, held above her face, fingers stabbing violently against the screen before she sighs miserably when none of her social media accounts connect.

Dropping the now nearly useless phone to her chest, Clementine groans low and long and pushes her face into her palms to muffle her frustrated complaints. Though it was less the restrictions to her social life that bothered her, and more the situation that had led to it. She hadn't meant for the fight with Lee to get so out of hand, or for the words she threw at him to be so hurtful. It’s just, it really didn’t feel like he was listening to her and, over the years, it’s become so fucking easy for her to be cruel in the heat of the moment.

Peeling her hands from her face and squinting, Clementine turns her gaze to her feet propped halfway up the wall, watching curiously how her toes wiggle inside her socks.

Lee was a good man. Clementine had met enough of the other sort in the two years she had spent as a child of the state to know that without a doubt. Shifted from foster family to foster family, she had always been seen as either a handy little cash cow to help pad out wallets or a poor, defenseless waif to prey upon.

But not with Lee.

Lee had seen her as something else. He had seen the child she had been. The lost and scared little girl who was so very alone and confused and trying to make sense of a situation that no one could definitively explain. And, despite the warnings given to him from the social workers, of just how damaged the skinny little girl with a tangled mop of curls was, he had still chosen to spend the afternoon with her. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with her, he had helped her with her math homework. Chuckled at her inventive childish cussing when her temper had gotten the best of her and cheered with her when she solved the problem without his help. And, by the time she had been told to wash up for dinner by the care taker in charge of the group home, Lee had already begun filing the paper application needed to foster her.

And now, now she'd fucked everything up. Lee had been gone for hours and she had been left alone to brood. 

Her hand swoops down, blindly groping for the phone that she had dropped to her chest. After a moment of flapping fingers, she found the device sliding toward her belly. Raised it to her face as she thumbed at the lock button on the side until the screen flared into life. Her eyes dart between the time display and the lock pattern grid, thumb pad idly tracing the edge of the screen to keep it from dimming again.

There’s an anxious and nauseating feeling rolling around in her belly as she eyes the time display again. It's almost seven, Lee should have been home over an hour ago.

Tapping out the unlock pattern against the screen, and scrolling through her contacts, Clementine's thumb pauses. Hovering over Lee's name. Hesitant and, if she were honest, a little scared to actually hit the button and connect the call. All the reasons not to call flood into her mind. Constricting her throat until she’s certain that, even if she did call, her voice would fail her and she’d be caught simply listening to Lee breathe. So, instead, she simply stares at the screen dominated by a photo of the man in one of his cheesy ‘Dad’ poses until it it dims and then fades to black.

The sigh that leaves her lips as her eyes slip shut is soft and deflating. Touching the edge of the phone to her brow, Clementine’s shoulders slump before she drops the device to the floor and twists her body. Curling herself around the knees that she pulls tight to her chest as her lashes slide together, forcing herself to simply continue to wait.

\------------------------------------------------------------

“Clem.”

The teen jolts awake at the soft call. Consciousness slamming into her like a fist to the gut, but her thoughts are slowed. Sluggish. Like she’s fighting to push her way through mud. With a long, steady exhale she pushes through the strange fuzzing touches that inform her that her brain is still waking from a nap. “Lee?”

His lips lift into a smile that crinkles his cheeks but doesn’t quite reach his dark eyes. “You good, Sweet pea? You were sleeping pretty hard.” 

“I’m ok.” Digging her knuckles to the corners of her eyes, Clementine rubs away the last of the watery sensation from her vision before blinking hard. “What time is it?”

“A little before nine.” His words are soft, and the voice sounds almost hollow. So far removed from his usual low and comforting rumble, like it was an echo and not the source. He reaches out to brush away a sleep tousled curl stuck to the corner of the girl’s lips but stops short, thumb and forefinger rubbing together in his indecision before dropping away. “I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten yet. So, I stopped to pick up that dessert you like if you’re hungry.”

“The half baked cookie thing?”

“That’s the one. Grabbed some ice cream too.”

Clementine’s belly gives a strange chortling wheeze that trails embarrassed fingers over her cheeks and heats her ears. A weak and shy smile beneath smokey topaz eyes sliding over to Lee as a soft chuckle ripples from his lips.

“I’ll reheat the cookie, you just come down when you’re ready, ok?”

She nods wordlessly, her eyes fixed firmly on the man as he heaves himself to his feet and pads toward the bedroom door. His shoulders look sagged and his head seems to droop just a little bit and everything just feels strangely off. Like the world had tilted around her ever so slightly and she was only noticing now that she’d clipped an unexpected bump. “Hey, Lee?”

His movements pause just as his fingers cage around the door knob. His wide back expands as he takes a long, silent breath, but he says nothing.

“We’re ok, right? You and me?”

The silence is deafening, and as it drags on the wave of anxiety and helplessness that have been rolling around in Clementine’s mind for the last couple of hours loom higher on the horizon.

“We can talk when you come downstairs.”

And then Lee is gone and Clementine is left to stare at her bedroom door left ajar, her heart trembling as her insides quiver. Eventually she’s going to have to face him. And she knows from bitter experience that putting off the inevitable in an effort to avoid consequences is a fool’s prayer. So, after a few minutes of mental preparation, she heaves herself from her bed and drags her feet as she follows the path from her room. Pads cautiously down the stairs and toward the open plan kitchen-slash-dining room where she leans against the arching dividing wall between there and the living room. Watching in silence as Lee bends to remove the dessert from the oven and scoops out several softball sized servings of vanilla ice cream. 

Warm foil container in his hands, Lee turns. His eyes catching on the teenager lurking in the entryway. He can see the tension in the way she that she holds herself, trying to force nonchalance into her cocked hip and folded arms, even as her fingers claw at her sleeved elbows. Twisting and rubbing the fabric between her fingertips. He smiles at her, hoping to ease her anxiety, hoping that she misses the hint of sadness that he can feel tightening his lips. 

“Come, sit.” He gestures with a nod. Directing the skittish eyes toward the seats encircling the tiny table. “I didn’t know if you wanted toppings or not, so I grabbed everything, y’know, just in case.” 

Clementine flicks her nervous gaze toward the dining table, taking in the spread of chocolate and caramel sauces, two spoons but no bowls, as well a can of whipped cream. Her heart twists and sinks down to sit low in her belly. Lee was trying too hard. He always went over the top when he was trying to act normal. She tries to stay calm as her heartbeat quickens, moving to slump in the nearest chair. She tries to hide the mounting anxiety behind a tiny appreciative smile when Lee places the dessert between them and claims his seat opposite her. Ignoring the extra toppings and picking up a spoon, Clementine cuts into the warm, gooey center and swirls it through the steadily melting ice cream.

For several minutes, no words were conversed between the pair, both simply taking slow and deliberate bites, chewing methodically as Clementine scanned Lee’s face for a reaction to the silence that hangs suspended between them. Like an axe that was ready to fall. She doesn’t know what she’s expecting to break the tension between them, but she knew that she wasn’t expecting Lee to simply place his spoon down as he sighs.

“I called your social worker.”

Trepidation slides through Clementine’s insides, it’s touch even more chilling to her belly than the melting ice cream. Eyes lowering as she licks the back of her spoon, using the extra seconds the movement provided in an effort to suppress the anxiety swelling inside her as she slowly raises her eyes again. “Figured you would.”

“You know I have to inform her of any complications. If the school had gotten in contact first, I immediately forfeit custody of you.” There’s a hint of something in the way that he talks that feels so worn out and defeated, like invisible fingers are constricting around his throat. “She asked me to stop by her office to discuss-” He pauses, his tired eyes are glassy, like he’s holding back tears. “- options.”

“Options?” She bounced the word back as she tossed her spoon back at the dessert a little more aggressively than anticipated. Watching how the puddle of melted ice cream splatters across the wood. “What options?”

“Either I voluntarily surrender my guardianship over you-”

“No!” Clementine is on her feet in a heartbeat, her seat kicked back and crashing to the floor. “They can’t! You… I…” She shakes her head furiously, curls bouncing, eyes shuttering against the sudden sting of heat gathering in the corners of her eyes. “What about the adoption?”

The heat from his fingers pressed to the back of her hand creeps into her thoughts and she wants so badly to pull away. The touch feels more of an invasion, an unwanted intimacy rather than a gesture of comfort. And it just makes his next words hurt that much more. 

“They rejected it, Clem. After this past year, they don’t think the fit is right.”

“So, that’s it?” Her knuckles bleach from clenching her fist too hard against the table, her teeth gritting against the screams tearing at her throat and tightening in her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Her hunched shoulders are pulled up tight to her ears, her internal shields turned physical. “We hit a rough patch and they pull the plug on everything?”

“Not everything. Like I said, she gave me options.”

Righting her chair again, Clementine sinks down, pushing her face into her hands and folding in on herself. As though the weight of her transgressions have finally caught up with her and now force themselves onto her shoulders. For a moment she just sits there, hiding, her whole body shaking. The option still unspoken scares her, but the one discussed hurt. Blowing out a long, shuddering breath, she threads her fingers into her curls, twisting them until she feels a sting to her scalp that freshens the swell of tears in her eyes. “What did she suggest?”

Her heart hammers in her chest as she hears the swish of paper moving over the table. Lees thick, dark fingers dominating her vision as they slide a brochure beneath her nose. Twisting the folded paper around so its angled the right way up for her before sliding away to reveal words proudly written in bold blue font; 'Ericson’s Academy, boarding school for troubled youth.'

“This school can help you, Clem.”

With fingers that trembled as they flipped through the pages and eyes that struggled to make sense of the words typed before her, Clementine felt the dam inside her shatter. Chin snapping up and fingers crumpling the brochure she snarled her next words more than spoke them. “So, the ‘options’ are; get rid of me or send me away? Wow, however will you fucking choose?!”

“I am not getting rid of you.”

“Sure, fucking looks it to me!” Lee looked so tired, just sitting there in front of her, unmoving. Simply taking the heat of her anger as the teen raged on. Then she saw him flinch, her words hitting their mark and cutting him to the core. “You’re just like the others. Feeding me their lies-”

“What would you have me do, Clem? Any time someone tries to help you, you fight them.”

“How the hell should I know!? I’m a kid-”

“Not for much longer.” Lee retorts. His tone, though lacking the heat of his fury, comes sharper than Clementine was used to hearing. Her mouth snaps shut with a click of her teeth as she turns her head away to glare at the floor. “You’re sixteen, Clementine. And you're angry, all of the time. And I-” All at once, the fire seems to drain from the man’s voice, leaving it hollow and broken. “I don’t know what else to do. But this school, the people there, they’ll know how to help you.” He reaches his hand out across the table, attempting to curl his fingers around hers. “You go for a year. If you show improvement then you can come home and we can process a new adoption application, if that’s what you want.”

As soon as his fingers touch hers, the teen yanks her hand away as though burned. Tucking her hands into her armpits, she struggles to process everything, until something catches in her brain. Something that doesn’t quite fit. Slowly, she turns her eyes to Lee’s. The tawny orbs narrowing and hardening as she dissects the information and finds the hook that snagged her attention.

"I leave for a year? Come back if I show improvement?” Lee sits frozen still under the girl’s furious gaze. He can actually see the moment that her comprehension floods into her eyes as she repeats back to him what he told her before she adds a few words of her own. “It sounds like you’re already decided on what’s the best choice out of _our_ options.”

He swallows hard against the tight knot in his throat, his mouth suddenly sticky and dry. Attempting to moisten his lips with a sandpaper tongue before he croaks awkwardly. “You’re application of enrollment was accepted an hour after I called your social worker.”

No.

“When she called me in to talk through our choices, I signed my consent so your enrollment could be processed.”

Nonono.

The more he talks, the more Clementine can feel her frustration building. Can taste the heady thickness of the terse atmosphere on her tongue like the metallic tang of a thunderstorm, looming on the horizon.

“On Friday, after I get off work, I’ll be taking you-”

Then the emotional storm inside her breaks, the wind howls and screams and Clementine fled.


	2. Next verse, same as the first

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new school. Again. The new kid. Again. Another principal wearing another flat, bland, standard smile of greeting.
> 
> Clementine's arrival at Ericson's gets off to a rocky start. The school is so odd, her roommate is... intense. And it's only been a few hours since it's all sunk in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so a few notes here. A reminder that this is an AU. It is a dark AU. It's still fairly light right now, but themes will start to darken in the next few chapters. This is the official warning that there are words in here that may be triggering to some people (they don't offend me, but they might offend others).
> 
> Also, as it is an AU, I have taken liberties to weave new elements into character back stories, and the resulting difficulties some characters face manifest themselves in slightly different ways. Things will be explained slowly and in pieces throughout the story, so please, be patient while I work on this, all will be revealed in due course.

**To Lose Oneself.**

Chapter 2: Next verse, same as the first. 

A new school. Again. The new kid. Again. Another principal wearing another flat, bland, standard smile of greeting. His piggy eyes squint, almost vanishing into his flabby jowls even though they’re untouched by the feeble curve of his lips, before dropping to the papers on his desk. Shuffling through them until his doughy fingers peel a flimsy binder from his desk, flips through it briefly before shoving it into Clementine’s hands. And that was it. That was another official welcome over with as the man dismissed her with a brusque “That will be all, Marsh.” and a wave of his pudgy hand, vaguely in the direction of the door, indicating that she should leave.

Stepping out and closing the door behind her, Clementine rolls her knapsack from her shoulder and drops it as she heaves a sigh. Lungs rattling, her chest expanding as she allows her heels to slide out from under her, sinking down the door until her ass hits the floor on the tail end of her exhale. Tilting her head back against the wood, she peers up at the ceiling, frowning as she counts the cracks in the plaster that radiate out from the light fixture like spiderwebs. The hallways downstairs are barren, save for the occasional child darting past and swerving to burst out of the main doors, vanishing into the courtyard and the spring warmth. Understandable as it is the weekend, with no classes but chaperoned recreational activities instead. So basically, monitored socializing aka babysitting.

Fucking lame.

The folder that Ericson had shoved into her hands hangs limp from her fingers. Curiously, Clementine turns it around, the neat print on the front declaring itself to be a “Guide to Ericson’s” welcome pack and class schedule. Opening the thin plastic cover, she thumbs through the sparse contents with an unamused scoff of disdain. Calling it a guide is laughable, but calling it a welcome pack is just insulting. Inside she finds a map and her class schedule. The name of her assigned counselor with his office hours and phone extension, as well as a three page document listing the rules, consequences for breaking said rules, and a chore list. But what caught her attention more so, was the tangle of letters and numbers scored in almost illegible chicken scratch beneath the staple. Her room number and name of her roommate she supposed.

Her eyes flit down, away from her attempts to decipher the letters, to the first paragraph on the leaflet, snorting when she notices that the space left vacant so that each generic welcome could be somewhat personalized with the addition of the student’s name, is _still_ vacant. She had only intended to skim over the words, but Clementine found herself drawn in. Not because she found the words particularly interesting, but rather the possibility that they might just hold the secret for her escaping this place within the year. So, she read until she was almost cross-eyed and studied until the words merged into blurred nonsense, her mind stubbornly rebelling against digesting any more of the information.

So engrossed with the papers, Clementine hardly notices the footsteps rounding the corridor below, nor the pause or them traveling up the stair case. So absorbed is she by the secrets hidden within the rules; secrets that she was desperate to uncover and understand, that she almost doesn’t notice that the footsteps have again paused in their journey, the figure’s presence just barely skirting the edge of her awareness. While she wasn’t entirely oblivious to the presence, she was not expecting to have any interaction with them.

“Well, now that’s a first.”

For a moment Clementine’s brain stutters against the unfamiliar voice. Stalling out as her body freezes and her thoughts struggle to switch lanes. After the sudden wash of cold and goose flesh fades from her skin and she remembers how to breathe without her throat closing on itself, Clementine’s vision slowly moves up and takes in the appearance of the newcomer.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually read that shit before. It’s kinda weird that you are.”

A teenage girl, perhaps a year older than herself, peers down at her. She stands tall and lean, dressed casually in simple black jeans with a white tee under an opened green shirt. Her red hair swings neat and smooth past her chin, spilling from beneath a forest green beanie and skimming behind her shoulders.

Clementine smirks up at the girl, one brow raised in mock appall. “Well, how else am I supposed to know if I’m about to land myself in trouble or not if I don’t know the rules?” She then turns her attention back to reading the rule stating that she should not be in another student’s dorm room after curfew, before moving on to the consequences should she be caught doing so. “Seems like playing at a disadvantage to me.”

The nameless girl sucks noisily against her teeth, her tongue clicking in amusement. “Yeeeaaaah. That’s not usually a big concern for most of us here.” She makes a show of casting a careful glance first to her left and then to her right, as though checking the vacant halls for eavesdropping ears, before leaning in close enough for Clementine to notice the pretty little smattering of freckles across her nose and stage whispering. “In case it slipped your notice, we’re not exactly the ‘play-by-the-rules’ kinda kids here. Part of that whole “troubled youth” shtick. But shhhhh, you can’t tell anyone, ok?”

Clementine can feel the grin trying to crawl onto her face, tugging at her lips and trying to stretch her smirk wider. The redhead was surprisingly easy to talk to, her sharp wit and dry humor bleeding through into her words as wonderfully chaotic banter. And, for a moment, Clementine feels almost comfortable. Like this girl is one of her old friends from her old life. But her traitorous brain very quickly reminds her that this isn’t her old life and this girl isn’t familiar, hell, she doesn’t even know her name. That this whole shit show of a day is awkward, and strange and she doesn’t want to be here. Closing up her folder and tucking it between her knees as she draws her legs up, the brunette leans herself back against the office door and sighs. “This is so weird.”

She can feel those aquamarine eyes on her, watching her, like a kitten watching a feather twirling on a breeze. Eyes full of curiosity and a body tensed with hesitancy, each battling for dominance as she tries to puzzle out exactly how to voice the questions swarming her tongue and clamoring in her throat. With another sigh, Clementine shifts her own gaze over to her still nameless companion, her good humored grin shrinking down to little more than a worn out line as she offers her answers without the need of the awkward verbal prompt. “Being here. And this place being my last chance to turn things around. It’s actually, really happening isn’t it?”

For a moment the other girl just stands there, her eyes flicking to the side awkwardly as she shifts her weight and turns. For a heart stopping moment, Clementine is certain that she’s going to leave. That she has made the girl feel so awkward and the interaction so uncomfortable that she’s about to walk away. But then, much to her relief, the redhead simply thumps down on the floor next to her. Her long slender legs stretched in front, neatly crossing over themselves at the ankles as she leans back on her palms. “Hey, like, I don’t know the reasons behind why you’re here or anything. But being here, doesn’t have to be a bad thing, ok? It really doesn’t.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” The brunette murmurs her agreement quietly. “But it is.” The loss of her adoption is still raw and it hurts so bad, but the possibility of it being gone forever makes her feel hollow inside. When Lee had brought those papers home with a huge smile on his face, she had sat beside him watching him fill them out. Pointing out where her name should be written on the document with shimmering eyes. When they had been told that it had been accepted into evaluation, she had allowed herself to get her hopes up. Had spent that weekend scrolling through amazon and adding bedroom furniture to her wish list. After the successful home visit from her social worker, Clementine had quietly used some of her allowance to buy Lee that tacky #1 Dad mug that now sits hidden and forgotten in the back of the closet in a room she doesn’t even know if she’ll have anymore. She pushes her face against the back of her knees, her voice trembling as she murmurs quietly. “I messed everything up. So bad.”

“I doubt that.” Staring isn’t quite the word for what Clementine does when the girl speaks, though her eyes do rest, not unblinking but slowed, on the redhead’s face. Falling to the way that her lips are not quite smiling but kind of tilting at the edges as though they mean to. “I mean it. It might feel like it, but you’re still able to fix it. That’s why you’re here and not somewhere worse. You didn’t mess up, you just kinda stumbled is all. Like the whole two steps forward, one step back conundrum, you’re so focused on the negative that you just can’t see your progress so easily.”

The girl’s words bloom hope inside of Clementine’s chest. She can feel it curl around her heat and radiate outwards, swelling and soothing and warming her blood as it swirls beneath her skin. She knows she is smiling again, just a little, but this one feels genuine with barely a twist of sadness. The girl’s eyes are so open and honest that it’s hard not to believe her, but Clementine is reluctant to grasp the offered optimism quite as fully as it is likely intended. Her disbelief and pessimism quirking a skeptical eyebrow.

“Ok, who are you? You’re like part kid and part inspirational poster.” It felt weird to bounce banter between them without knowing her name. Odd for Clementine to connect with somebody so fast. But the redhead beside her just seems to exude a warmth, a genuineness and a softness of spirit and that makes it frighteningly easy for her to let her shields down.

“Something like that.” She shifts slightly, turning her hip as she draws one knee to her chest and props her elbow to it, palm cupping her chin. With the girl now facing her fully, Clementine can see the soft hazels swirling through the ocean blue of her eyes. It’s almost like watching the tide crashing seashells beneath the surf. “But think more someone who knows a little bit about what you’re going through. Only, I didn’t have to face this place alone. I have my sister here, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it definitely makes this place less lonely.”

“Soooo, what? You’re like, the welcome wagon or something?” Inside her body Clementine can feel how her guts shift uncomfortably. The idea of assigned pity suddenly making her feel more dispirited than before the girl’s arrival and, in turn, corrupts the genuineness of her actions into something almost mocking. It coils and whips around inside her, stirring Clementine’s own awkwardness into the first wisps of irritation. “The poor sap stuck with showing the new kid around?”

She already feels so out of place here, and the idea that the first person who actually decided to talk to her only doing so because she had been tasked to sticks in her craw. She doesn’t need pity. Doesn’t want it. If that’s where this encounter was headed then the redhead could take her two-faced niceties and shove them up her a-

“If you like. But, fyi, this place isn’t exactly hot on assigning a welcoming committee, or providing a buddy to show you around outside of that sad thing.” The girl directs Clementine’s hardened gaze toward the the thin file still dangling limp between her fingers as she pushes herself to her feet and brushes down the seat of her jeans. “You just looked kinda lost and overwhelmed, so I thought a little pep talk and maybe a friendly face would ease things a little.” She smiles softly, a little shadow of understanding edging into her eyes. “I know how much it sucks being the new kid.”

Oh.

“I’m kinda used to being the new kid.”

“Doesn’t make it suck any less though, does it? Here,” The redhead again directs Clementine’s attention to the file, this time though she holds her hand out for the item. “Lemme take a look and see what room you’ve been assigned, I can take you there if you like?”

“Oh, yeah. That would be amazing actually.” Shoving the plastic into the taller girls hands and scrambling to her own feet, Clementine snatches up her knapsack and slings it over her shoulder, a relieved sigh drifting from her lips before they tighten. The redhead’s eyebrows furrow, her eyes scanning the paper for something that she clearly isn’t finding. Hedging her bets, the brunette clears her throat and fills in the blanks for her. “The name’s Clementine. They, uh, kinda didn’t fill that part out.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” The file is pressed back into Clementine’s hands, accompanied by an apologetic smile. “Kinda drives home my point about this place and their shitty welcomes. Sooooooo, I guess I should extend a proper greeting.” And then she’s biting the edge of her lip, fighting the smile that reaches all the way to her raised eyebrows. “Hi there, Clementine. Welcome to the Ericson’s Academy. Boarding school for troubled youth. I’m Sophie, your guide-slash-fellow troubled youth. Now, if you would like to follow me, lets go get you settled in.”

\---------------------------------------------------------

Clementine follows Sophie through the dormitory halls. Trailing behind with her eyes unfocused and drawn down to her feet, not quite knowing what to expect. Though, if the tacky area rugs over bared floorboards were of any indication…

“Aaaaand, here it is. Room four, twelve.” Sophie’s fingers tapping against the brass plaque screwed into the wall drew the brunette’s attention away from her critiques of the decor. Sneakers halting with a tooth curling squeak and twisting on her toes, she turns herself alongside the redhead and studies the heavy looking door. It was scratched and dented beneath the paint and varnish and the brushed brass doorknob looked dull despite being littered with greasy fingermarks. And there, propped against the frame, stand her scuffed up suitcase and duffel, ready to be hauled inside the room. 

“The school runs on a skeleton staff over the weekend.” Sophie says softly, noticing the frown creasing Clementine’s brow as she flips the strap to her duffel with her toe. “So, your dad brought them in here for you while you were with Ericson.”

_Dad._

The way that Sophie said the word so casually makes Clementine feel sick. Her heart both jams up hard into the back of her throat and falls through the floor in one single sensation. She swallows thickly, forcing down the hard lump threatening to choke her and somehow manages to banish the sudden burn of tears creeping from behind her eyes. “He’s not my dad.”

“Oh.” The regret emanates from the redhead in heavy waves. Twisting the air and making it difficult to breathe for a second. “Sorry, I just assumed-”

“It’s fine!” Bending down and blinking furiously, Clementine snatches up her suitcase. “He’s my… He’s-” Her throat closes around the next word, choking out her voice before she can say anything more. Instead, she simply reaches out for the strap of her duffel but Sophie beats her to it and swings the heavy bag up over her shoulder, wincing as the strap digs into her skin and curves her spine in effort to help her balance.

In that moment, the quiet of the empty hall turns cold and chills her skin. Closing her eyes, Clementine steels herself, readying to meet the other girls curiosity and braces for the barrage of questions that always come next. She expects Sophie to pry. To needle her for an explanation. Instead, she simply hears the quiet click of the door, the lock unlatching and feels her muscles untighten with the soft swish of fabric sliding over fabric as the redhead moves past her and into the room.

Clementine pauses at the doorway, allowing her eyes to roam the room, her toes almost but not quite over the threshold. She knows she’ll have to go inside before Sophie notices her hesitancy, but at least this pause grants her a few extra moments to mentally prepare. The room is surprisingly large, with two standard beds -one notably neater than the other- pushed against opposing beige walls, with a small all in one desk, bookcase and set of drawers standing at the end of each one. The wide central window allows the late afternoon sunlight to bathe the room unfettered, stroking its golden touches over the tops of the bureau and neatly spread comforters and leaving long shadowy fingers crawling up the walls.

Sophie rolls the strap from her shoulder and drops the duffel on the neater of the two beds, the mattress dipping beneath its weight with the slightest squeak of springs. Drawing a long breath the girl digs her fingertips into the dull ache in the join between her neck and shoulder and circles her head until she can peer over at Clementine still hanging back behind her. “It’s alright, Clementine.” A soft curve touches Sophie’s lips as her eyes dance merrily. “The coast is clear. I’m pretty sure there’s no monsters under the bed or in the closets or anything.”

For a half second Clementine’s brain stalls, caught in slow motion as the world races on by. Her mind struggling with the lack of curious questions about Lee to dodge as she just stands there in the doorway, clutching her suitcase. Then, wordlessly, she takes a step into the dormitory, her feet dragging as she plods over to the neater bed. Her eyes fixed forward as she moves.

“Ughhh.” The exasperated sound drifting from Sophie’s lips has Clementine glancing over to the tall redhead, thrust elbow deep into a closet. “I swear. For someone with so little, that girl has an infuriating talent of getting her shit everywhere.” The shrieking scrape of metal dragging over metal slices through the air and makes the brunette’s teeth tingle. Shoving over the few items already hung up, Sophie moves backwards with a half dozen unused hangers rescued from the depths of the closet now in her arms.

She turns back to the younger teen, now seated on the bed, eyes downcast and watching her feet swing, scuffing her heels against the floor. “Here, now you can hang your clothes.” Depositing her offering beside the blank girl, Sophie offers a thin smile. “If you need more, just flag down one of the custodians. They’ll-”

“Why didn’t you ask?” Clementine’s shoulders lift as she digs her fingers into edge of the mattress, her grip curling tight. “About him?”

Head tilted, Sophie blinks owlish and slow. “Him?”

“Him… The guy who dropped my stuff off.” Clementine lifts her eyes, but not her chin, as she peers up warily through thick dark lashes. “Everyone always asks. But, you didn’t… Why?”

Sophie folds her arms up over her chest and shrugs. “You didn’t want to offer, I didn’t want to pry.” Her lips twist into a soft grimace and her brows kind of pinch up into a shadow of a frown, though her ocean eyes have yet to lose their warmth still. It’s an expression of gentle understanding, of kindness without expectation. “We all have things we don’t want to talk about. So, don’t feel like you have to.”

It was confusing. Clementine had grown adept at hiding her broken insides over the years. Hoarding her shattered thoughts and heart fragments jealously while people around her insisted they knew how to fix them and demanded that she expose her pieces. And the more they pushed and cajoled her, the more stubbornly Clementine would dig in her heels and fold herself more possessively around her vulnerabilities. But not with Sophie. The more she assured Clementine that her emotions and hesitancy were valid, the more she felt comfortable with trusting the girl with her broken parts. It was thrilling and also kinda terrifying.

The smile that twitches onto Clementine’s face is tiny and delicate, but the gratitude shines through. Her shoulders ease back down, away from her ears and return to their normal position as her eyes flit around the opposite side of the room. Falling first to the chaotic clutter of papers and scattered pens, tumbling across the tiny desk and closed laptop, then traveling over to the other bed. The quilt was pulled up but rumpled; like the occupant had been in a hurry that morning, but that wasn’t what had caught Clementine’s attention. Peeking out from under the pillows at the head of the bed, limp and ragged and having clearly seen better days, was what looked like a pride flag.

Perking higher, her mouth morphs from her limp smile into a wry smirk and her voice flutters in a sharp bark of amusement. “Not sure if that’s comforting or concerning.”

“Oh?” Sophie raises a brow as she flicks her gaze to where Clementine’s line of sight had settled. Her own gaze skimming over to the dingy material before shifting back to the brunette without the girls notice. “How so?”

“Well,” The younger teen turns her focus away from the other bed and begins unzipping her duffel. Tugging out some of her clothing and separating her pants from her jeans, and her hoodies from the few shirts that needed hanging up before she began threading the hangers into her clothing and passing them to Sophie, who then slid them into the closet for her. “Either my roommate is a member of the community, or-” She slides her tawny gaze over to the redhead and pitches her voice into one of mock terror as she points out the half hidden flag. “ -she’s a homophobic psychopath and that is just some kind of sick trophy.”

The laughter that drifts from Sophie’s lips is light and musical. Taking the last of Clementine’s hung clothing from the girl and tucking them away before shutting the closet again. “That’s an _interesting_ conclusion to draw. She’s a little rough around the edges, but Vio-”

Sophie’s words falter. Trailing off as a pair of tangling voices, familiar to herself but foreign to Clementine, cut through the open door and the rhythmic fall of trotting feet echoes between the walls in the hall.

“Will you move your ass? I dunno when, but that new kid’s supposed to show up today. So, we gotta do this quick.”

“I know, I know. You losing your bachelor pad halfway through the semester is utter bullshit!” Clementine flinches against the accusatory tone that carries the disembodied voice into the room as the footfalls strike harder against the floor. Louder, drawing ever nearer. “Where are we gonna go now?”

“Could always find a place in the forest. Y’know, like any other normal teenager would.”

“Yeah, alright. So I’ll take twigs up my ass for _your_ comfort.” The rough snort sounds so close now. Just a few feet away from rounding the doorway. “No, thanks.”

Any minute now and the two rapidly approaching girls would burst around the corner and into the dormitory. Any minute now and Clementine’s guts would stop their anxious rolling, finally being able to match voices to faces. 

“Not my fault if you always go down first.”

One of these voices belonged to her new roommate.

“That’s because you go down better.”

And, judging by Sophie’s suppressed rolling eyes, she’s not entirely sure which one she would prefer. Just as Clementine opens her mouth to say something, the sharp squeaking and dull scuffling of stumbling feet has her snapping her jaw shut again. The husky, bluesy voice of one of the unseen girls pitches higher than before, breathless, trembling on the tail end of a startled laugh.

“Oh, my god, Min! Get the fuck off me! That’s cheating!”

“It’s not cheating,” ‘Min’ protests with a throaty chuckle. “ You presented an opportunity and I took it.”

“You’re an asshole. You fight dirty.”

“You love dirty-”

The footsteps stop and words fade, and Clementine finds herself staring into startled green eyes flashing wild beneath scattered strands of pale blonde. A bent head of familiar red hair nuzzles into the curve of narrow shoulder. Lips pressing firm and roaming the pale skin of the blonde’s throat as long arms wrap around her slender torso. Her smaller body, partially folded forward, is held flush against the redheaded girl’s own, her biceps pinned to her ribs by the same girl’s elbows as the blonde curls her hands up, fingers wrapping and clinging to the wrists crossing her collarbone.

A moment later and the nuzzling redhead pulls back, admires the pinking mark she had left on the blonde’s skin before rolling her eyes up, almost entirely unphased as aquamarine and tawny gold meet aquamarine and watercolour green. Hooking her chin over the blonde’s shoulder, the redheaded reflection offers a lop-sided grin to both Clementine and Sophie even as her grip on the blonde tightens ever so slightly. “-Oh, hey Soph. Didn’t see ya there.”

Hip cocked and arms folded, Sophie frowns her disapproval. “Hello, Minerva.”

“Ooo, ouch.” Minerva’s lips curl a little too slowly from the wince into a small smile for it to feel like a natural progression. And the way her pupils flutter give away her guilt hastily shoved beneath her projected nonchalance. “Breaking out the full name and the big sister voice. Guess that means I’m in trouble?” 

It’s then that Clementine realizes, as she shifts her focus, that she has been just standing there, staring at the blonde. Too lost in the sharp, smoke green orbs and appealingly angular face to even truly notice the other girl beyond the limbs wrapped possessively around her. Now she finds herself ensnared again, falling into quiet bewilderment as she takes an actual look at the other girl. The other girl who is wearing Sophie’s face. Sophie’s sister… Sophie’s fucking _twin_ sister! Of course she’s a twin. Why the hell not?

“When are you not?” The sigh that curls through Sophie’s words is slow and gradual, softening the weary disappointment in her voice. “Can you put Violet down? She’s a big girl and doesn’t need you hanging all over her.”

“Doesn’t need it. But she likes it.” The other twin smirks, pressing her cheek to the blonde- to Violet’s temple, and tightens her arms around her.

“Minnie!”

“Alright! Alright, I’m ‘putting her down’, jeez.”

Limbs loosen and reluctantly slide away, as Minnie slowly disentangles herself from Violet but not without an obvious and bold drag of her fingers along the prominent jut of collar. Standing almost as tall as her sister, it’s clear that they are identical twins. But the more that Clementine actually looks at Minnie, the more she is able to pick out the differences.

While she wears the same smattering of freckles across her nose and her lips are just as plump, Minnie is all lean muscle and long limbs where Sophie is soft lines and feminine curves. Her eyes, though the same blue-green are less like warm oceans and more cold, like the northern lights, but the most jarring difference between them is their hair. It’s the same pretty burnt orange colour, like the skies lit ablaze at sunset, but Minnie wears hers shorn short on one side, her bangs swept to the other and barely reaches her jaw.

“We were just gonna hang out-”

“Anyone walking the halls knows what you two were ‘just gonna do’.” Sophie slices through her sisters words with her own barbed ones. “And hanging out is _not_ what you were planning.” She sounds exhausted. Drained. Her voice dulled with a boredom that suggests that this argument is a regular occurrence between herself and Minerva.

And then, there was Violet. 

Clementine finds herself strangely infatuated by the girl. Curious and fascinated as her gaze once again falls to her. She’s small and slender with understated curves. Petite. She’s wrapped up tight in snug fitting pants, and folded arms, her fingers curling into the sleeves of a plaid shirt over a thin hooded sweatshirt. Her blonde hair reaches her chin, feathered ends giving it that stylishly messy look, and scatters its hue from pale dirty yellow to soft platinum, depending on how the light hits it. But what really catches Clementine’s attention are her eyes. They’re like mosaics that shift to the angry swirls of ocean on a stormy day, green with tinges of grey and silver. And they peer right back at her. Reflecting Clementine’s curiosity from their depths.

“Clementine?”

Violet’s eyes shift first, breaking their bewitching hold on the brunette as she blinks herself back into the room. Following the blonde’s focus, Clementine finds herself caught between the sisters gazes, two pairs of twin moons set above freckled constellations fixed firmly on her. Minnie’s eyes hold that same open honesty as Sophie’s, even though her lips twitch up at the edges in to a knowing smirk, while Sophie’s soft smile maintains the same comforting warmth that she has throughout the afternoon together.

“I gotta go, ok? Minnie’s trying to skip out on her chores,” She turns a stern glare to her sister, who simply shrugs it off and continues grinning. “So, now I need to put my boot up her ass to make sure she gets done before the dinner bell. Violet’s your roommate-” _Of course she fucking is._ “-she’ll help you finish up getting settled. If you want to, you can come find me at dinner. Friendly face and all that.”

Clementine swallowed awkwardly. Forcing herself to not watch Violet as she brushes past her and drops herself onto her bed, one slender leg kicking up on top of the sheets. “Oh, right.” Her tongue feels thick and heavy in her mouth, clumsy as it struggles and trips over even the simplest of words. “Ok, yeah. I’d like that. Thanks.”

“Alright, then.” Sophie slides her gaze over to the blonde sprawled across the rumpled blankets. Arms folded and pillowed beneath her head, one foot hangs over the mattress edge, pressing flat to the floor. Her other leg is upright and bent at the knee with her heel pulled up tight against her ass. A perfectly lazy and slouching sprawl that strangely seems to suit her. “Vi, can you, y’know, tell her where she can put the rest of her stuff?”

“Fine.” The sigh that floats from Violet’s lips carried with it a note of weary resignation. As though the request to help her new roommate would be an unwanted and deliberate effort for her. Shifting her hip and pushing herself up onto one elbow, she waves her other hand vaguely toward the other side of the room. Her fingers flicking idly, as though she were swatting at an annoying insect rather than directing Clementine’s attention. “That’s your side. You keep your shit over there.”

Clementine can feel the heat of her embarrassed frustration flood to her cheeks and nip at her ear tips as Minnie’s laughter throbs in her head, loud and booming and cutting through the tension and ricocheting around the room like a gunshot. The loud laughter drowns out Sophie’s disapproving groan but not her sharp reprimand. “Vi, don’t be an ass. You really want that to be your first impression?”

“No.” Violet smirks, one corner of her mouth just barely parting to show her teeth as she catches Clementine’s tawny eyes with her own sharp green ones and snorts. “I’d rather it to be my last.”

Pressing her thumb to her eye, Sophie grumbles quietly. “Just, help her. Please?” Turning on her heel, the long-haired teen slid her fingers around Minnie’s elbow, guiding her quickly to the door before before she pauses and calls back over her shoulder to Clementine. “I’ll see you at dinner, ok.”

“And I’ll see _you_ after dinner, Vi.” Minerva, managing to add her own parting arrangement, smirks at the blonde, the scar split brow quirking suggestively when Violet grins back. “The forest is oh, so pretty in the evening. Maybe we can even find a spot to-” Minerva slid her suggestive gaze from Violet, to her sister, and then back again. “-hang out at.”

“For god’s sake Minnie!”

“What!?”

Clementine watches quietly as Sophie drags Minnie from the room, the twins vanishing from sight. Her eyes remain fixed on the empty door, the halls beyond bouncing around the fading voices of the girls lively bickering. Now alone with Violet, her new roommate, Clementine can feel the walls press in on herself. The tension oozes through the air and makes every breath she takes thick and cloying in the back of her throat. Still seated and swiveling around, she offers her sullen roommate a ghost of a smile. “Um, well that was awkward.”

Violet doesn’t move her head but she slides her narrowed eyes to the side, peering at the brunette through her scattered ashen bangs. “Was it?” She mumbled. “Felt pretty standard to me.”

Violet’s voice is warm and raspy and dripping sarcasm. But despite the hostility, it still sends Clementine’s nerves dancing up and down her spine. Again the brunette finds her gaze falling to the partially hidden pride flag. “So, you and Minnie?”

This time, Violet does turn her head. Her eyes flashing and narrowing further into a glare. “Me and Minnie, what?”

Clementine, taken slightly aback by the ferocity of the blonde’s scowl, gestures to the colourful bundle peeking from under Violet’s pillow. Using the few moments it took the other girl to push the flag deeper under the bedding to swallow down the lump rising in her throat. “You’re… I mean, you guys are dating right?”

Violet doesn’t answer right away, instead she is on her feet, stalking toward the brunette. Clementine’s eyes widen as she scrambles further back on her bed. Her guts chill as her surprise slides through her insides, coiling heavily low in her belly as her brain stalls. The thoughts jump about wildly, refusing to connect into anything coherent, her words tumbling out of her mouth, broken and stuttering as Violet draws closer. “What’s the matter, Princess? Do you fear the queer?”

“N-no… I...”

She feels her bed dip as Violet’s knees dig into the mattress, her legs spread either side of Clementine's own.

“I’m thinking that you do.” Violet’s lips skim back away from her teeth in a feral grin and a molten sliver light flashes through the dilute green. “Either that or you want daddy dyke to show you how to play.” Long, pale fingers thread between Clementine’s own. Curling into claws before the blonde brings the brunette’s hand to her face. Clementine freezes, her eyes snapped wide and watching as Violet drops her gaze, fascinated by the designs she draws into the caramel skin stretched over ridged knuckles with her index finger. “You’ve been staring at me since I walked in here.”

Time seems to freeze as Violet’s eyes lift to peer up at her through her lashes. And Clementine feels her heart rattle around her ribs wildly as Violet draws her hand to her own chest. Fingers manipulated into curling around the gentle swell of petite breast beneath the girl’s thin hoodie, kneading the flesh until the blonde breathes a low, soft mewl. And then, when Clementine feels soft, chapped lips press firm to her own, time races past her way too fast. She’s confused, intimidated but, beneath it all, she’s ashamed to admit that she’s a little bit excited.

The kiss only lasts mere seconds, but to Clementine’s mind it feels like it’s never ending. She’s only aware that the connection is severed when she feels Violet shift backwards, her voice stirring warm against her ear. “You could be fun,” The rasp comes thicker to Violet’s voice. Deeper and far more arousing than it has right to be as she flicks a startlingly pink tongue over her lips and purrs. “but I prefer toys that don’t break the first time I play with them.”

With a roll of narrow hips, Violet slides off of the brunette and bed both and saunters toward the door. While Clementine just sits there, wide eyed and slack jawed and trying to figure out exactly what in the hell just happened, the blonde stops and wraps her slim frame against the door jamb in a provocative manner. Smirking as she leaves Clementine with a laugh, a permission and a warning. “You can take the bottom drawer of the bureau. Just don’t touch my shit.


	3. Cracked masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clementine feels overwhelmed after her first meeting with her new roommate. It didn't go well, but it's just one more thing to add to her personal shit mountain. While talking with Sophie at dinner, she slips and reveals a little more abut herself and everything just gets too much for her.
> 
> Little does she realize that she's not the only one dealing with repressed emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God damn, this chapter has been hard to write. 
> 
> People have asked for the angst, asked when does the angst hit. Here be angst. Please, PLEASE pay attention to the tags. This fic deals with hard subjects. There ARE triggers. Too many to list. This chapter deals with some hints to unhealthy coping mechanisms. This chapter shows toxic relationships and offers a glimpse into the damage it causes.
> 
> This is an official extra warning... If you are sensitive to triggers involving sexuality, please think carefully before proceeding.

**To Lose Oneself.**

Chapter 3: Cracked masks. 

The lunch room is surprisingly loud for how few it held. Occupying less than half of the dozen or so tables scattered around the room are groups of kids. Their numbers ranging from pairs to small clusters, mouths crammed full and voices muffled behind mashed up bites of cold chicken pasta and limp lasagna, words are shouted at each other rather than spoken. Clementine stands there, the slick and greasy feeling of plastic sliding against her skin, the voices bubbling around her are already loud but the volume continues to steadily rise as each kid attempts to be heard over the others. Overwhelmed eyes of tawny gold flicker from one table to another until they finally settle on a familiar silhouette sitting alone in a corner. Red hair tumbling free around her shoulders.

Confidence bolstered and with her fingers tightening around her tray, Clementine slowly weaves a path between the tables. Threading herself nimbly between bodies and barren furniture alike, until she slides herself into the empty spot next to Sophie. Setting her meal down gently upon the tabletop as she drops her ass with far less grace into the seat beside the redhead, she picks up her fork without a word and stabs it violently into a chunk of chicken.

Wry amusement touches Sophie’s eyes and bleeds into her words as she watches Clementine’s brutality. “I know the food here doesn’t exactly scream ‘welcome’. The kitchen staff aren’t around over weekends, so they leave out leftovers for us to reheat.” She prodded at the gelatinous layers of overly wet meat sauce and rubbery cheese on her own plate. “But even cold, chewy leftovers don’t deserve such violence. Soooooo, I’m guessing things didn’t go well with Vi after I left?” The glance that Clementine sends Sophie is withering, her eyes hooded and dark. Her brows pull down low as she pushes the forkful into her mouth, chewing slow and methodical. “Oh, wow. That bad, huh?”

Still chewing, Clementine simply nods and glances back to the unappetizing meal in front of her. Surprised when she feels herself being gently jostled, her shoulder nudged by Sophie’s own. Her eyes slide back over slowly, vision dominated by a soft, warm smile. “I promise, Clem. Violet’s sweet, once you get to know her. She just takes a little extra time to warm up.”

As much as she wants to call bullshit on Sophie, it just seems an impossible thing to do. It’s too difficult for Clementine to believe her own negativity over Sophie’s positivity, despite what had happened between herself and the blonde back in the dorm. The girl beside her just emanated compassion and understanding. It rolled off her in waves. She was patient and understood what it meant to have wounded pride. She had been content, throughout their interactions, to simply let Clementine come close or hide as she needed. Let her return after the brunette had snapped at her without making Clementine feel shame or prejudgement. She just seemed to simply know when someone needed to be seen as strong, even when it’s so very obvious they’re still so far from achieving it. “She’s very, um…”

“Guarded?” Sophie supplies with a knowing smile and quirked brow. Filling her mouth with the final edible bite of her meal.

Clementine’s lips purse and twist as she frowns. Poking at the limp pasta spirals littering her plate, she heaves a sigh. “Guarded isn't quite the word I would use. Brazen is one. Intense is another good choice…” She drops her fork and grabs for her soda instead. “She’s confusing.”

Sophie finished chewing her mouthful and swallowed before turning to Clementine with a serious look on her face. “Yeah, those are all pretty good word choices for her. But honestly, Clem, everything that Violet says and does should be taken with a pinch of salt.”

“She kissed me!” Clementine spluttered incredulously through the burn of inhaling the soda into her throat. Her vision melting into tears as the carbonation scorches the inside of her nose. “After you dragged Minnie out, things got tense. Then she climbed on me and _kissed_ me. How do I take that with a pinch of salt? How is that guarded?”

Sophie simply smiled softly, pushing her mostly empty plate to the side so she could twist in her seat and brace her elbow against the table edge, her chin propped in her palm. She catches the brunette’s wide, golden eyes with her own sea breeze ones, her face open and posture relaxed, giving the younger teen her full attention. “Well, riddle me this. She kissed you, right?”

“Right!”

“And it came out of nowhere, right?”

Clementine shifts awkwardly in her seat, her thoughts dragging the interaction back in to the forefront of her mind. Recalling the blonde’s sharp words and the terse clip to her voice when she spoke. “Yeah, kinda...” Both her gaze and her voice dropping to a quiet, guilty mumble. “I guess.”

“And how did it make you feel?”

Blinking slowly, Clementine considers the words carefully. Her gaze shifts back to the sad meal on her plate as she tries to shuffle through her conflicting thoughts. The swirl of ice in her guts constricts both her chest and belly, her appetite mostly lost as she chases the food around with her fork. “Well, confused mostly. And a little uncomfortable.”

“And did it make you want to talk with her after? Get to know her?”

Eyes closing and cheeks puffing, Clementine heaves her breath. “I… No.” Finally realizing what her companion was getting at. “No, not really.”

Lips twitching into a thin, tight line, Sophie nods sagely. “That’s just how Violet works. Shock and awe. A pretty effective defense mechanism, don’t you think?” There’s a shadow that flits across her eyes, a sadness that Clementine hadn’t seen in the redhead’s expression before. She tries to follow it, to see how far the foreign expression went, but before she can look too hard, Sophie’s face shifts back to gentle understanding. “Violet takes a little extra time to reach. But, if you put the effort in, she really is a sweet kid, considering her story.”

Ears perked and curiosity piqued, Clementine leans in closer. Mimicking Sophie’s relaxed, lounging posture. “Which is?”

Sophie’s mouth curves a little higher as she shakes her head. “Sorry Clem, not my circus, not my monkeys. You want to know Violet’s story? Then you’re gonna have to try and figure that out with the girl herself.” 

Uncurling herself and returning to her meal, Clementine forks a few more bites into her mouth, chewing slowly as her thoughts roll and twist inside her head. They kept bringing her back to the fluttering she had felt in her chest, mimicking the sensations she had felt when the warm, sweet breath and raspy voice had stirred the short curls around her ear. Back to the way that dilute green eyes had darkened at the edges and peered up at her through short pale lashes before soft, confident lips had pressed to hers. “Sophie?”

“Mmmm?”

Swallowing hard, Clementine’s ventures her question. Broaching the subject that had been squashing all of the logic from her thoughts and wrung the saliva from her mouth so that her voice catches and cracks embarrassingly in her throat. “Are Violet and Minerva dating? Like, are they girlfriends?”

A small crease puckers the redhead’s forehead, turning her neat eyebrows downwards with a slight squint tugging at the corner of one eye. “Oh, boy. This is gonna be kinda hard to explain. Not really, but kinda, I guess.” Clementine can see from the way that Sophie’s lips tighten that she’s thinking deeply. Considering her words carefully, planning out exactly what she feels she can share and how to say it. After a long, uncomfortable moment, the girl glances back and that strange shadowed emotion that Clementine had seen a few exchanges ago has returned. It chokes the vibrancy out of her eyes, darkening the tropical colours into greyed storming seas. “Violet and Minnie don’t really function well together in the whole dating thing. They’re amazing friends, but as girlfriends… Not so much. Violet has trouble with accepting and understanding labels and Minnie doesn’t quite know how to manage herself without them. So, when they were together things got pretty toxic pretty fast. So, now they just kinda do whatever it is that they do and it sorta works.”

Clementine swallowed hard, throat bobbing and working hard against what felt like a fist stuck in her gullet. Shivering against some strange sensation that wriggled through her thoughts in some confusing amalgamation of conflicting and mixed up emotions, squirming like maggots writhing and tumbling through her insides. “Still sounds like a pretty unhealthy arrangement, honestly.”

“And you’re not entirely wrong.” There’s a wry edge to the redhead’s tone. Blunt without sounding too harsh. “But, if they knew how to process things in healthy ways, then they wouldn’t be here.”

Clementine’s head tilts in confusion, trying and failing to decipher and process what Sophie’s words meant. Catching onto the brunette’s incomprehension, the redhead continued her explanation, her shoulders shrugging limply. “Being troubled doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re just a bad kid who causes trouble. Most of us here, we aren't bad people, we just suck at processing things and communicating when we need help. We aren’t trouble, we have or have experienced trouble, and we struggle to express what’s eating at us. Or, when we do, we get shut down, so we just stop trying.”

“Well,” The dimple in Clementine’s cheek pops as she offers the redhead a small smile. “You don’t seem to lack those communication skills. So far, you’ve managed to explain everything about this place to me better than any adult has. The Principal of the school simply shoved a four page ‘welcome’ folder into my hands and sent me away. My social worker used it as a threat to scare my foster da-” For a split second, Clementine felt her blood run cold and her mouth slam shut. She hadn’t meant to let slip about her being a foster kid, but Sophie just seemed to coax her out of herself so terrifyingly easily.

Dropping her eyes to her hands and her hands into her lap, Clementine simply sat there, her eyes unfocused, vision blurring.

“Clementine?” 

Eyes, more liquid gold than tawny, snap up. The first crystalline tear beading upon the base of thick lashes catching in the harsh fluorescent light like an uncut diamond. “I-I’m sorry.” Clementine’s voice hitches and bubbles, breaking on a gasping breath. Palms punching into her eyes and crushing against the squishy organs until blossoms of colour bloom and sashay into the darkness. She rubs furiously as the building tears refuse to allow themselves to be banished this time, slowly force themselves through lids and lashes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I hate this. I hate being here. I just want to go home.”

Sophie had seen new student’s cry before. The younger kids wailing as their parent’s kissed their foreheads and drove away, leaving them with nothing but promises to return at the end of the semester and reminders to behave. Even Minerva had sniffled her way through her entire first month here, hiding away under her blankets at night, crying into her hands until her twin had beckoned her over to climb into her bed. But this, with Clementine, this was more than simply crying. This was the desolate sobbing of hopelessness. This was the sound of an already broken heart shattering into the tiniest of fragments.

Sophie leaned over and wrapped her arm around the brunette’s trembling shoulder. Ignoring how the girl’s body tensed up beneath her touch when the redhead’s fingers cured around her bicep. Ignored how the girl went limp and allowed herself to be drawn against her side, or how she flinched as Sophie adjusted her hold to be both strong and gentle at once. Encompassing yet nonrestrictive, granting the weeping girl the opportunity to either stay or leave, whatever she needed to help her through the overwhelming flood of emotion.

Turning her face into Sophie’s shoulder, her own arms coming up to cling to the taller teen, Clementine wept. Twisting her fingers into Sophie’s shirt and sobbing unrestrained until she felt raw and wrung out. And, even though she had no more tears to give and felt so incredibly delicate and hollow, the brunette remained there, still curled up around the other girl as she brought her hand to her face. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I didn’t…” Wiping away the dried tear tracks from her cheeks and around her eyes before swiping her sleeve under her nose, Clementine slid herself out of the redhead’s arms, her eyes falling to the dark, damp spot on the girl’s collar. “Oh, my god! I got snot all over you.”

Shrugging, Sophie offered Clementine a small, knowing smile. “Don’t worry about it.” Shifting her hands, the redhead tugged her open shirt together, buttoning it partway up and hiding the tear stains on her white tee. “There, see? Now it’s like it never happened.”

Clementine’s lips wear the weak smile limply, her eyes still dark and hazed over with misery. She sniffled once more before scrubbing her hands over her face. “Shit. I’m such a god damned wreck. I really thought things would be different this time.” She slides her vision over to the twin and sighs. “Lee, he’s my foster parent. He applied for adoption-”

Clementine’s voice softened and died in her throat as Sophie curled her fingers around the girl’s wrist, squeezing gently. “You really don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Taking in a long, slow breath, Clementine squeezed her eyes shut, before exhaling shakily. “I know. And I really appreciate it. But,” Dark lashes flicker as they draw back from shining golden brown. “I think talking about it will make it all sink in faster.”

Nodding and uncurling her touch, Sophie drew her hand back. Settling herself down to listen and learn a little more about her curious new friend.

\-------------------------------------------------

_“Hey, Princess. What are you doing?”_

_The little girl glances up from where she sat on her knees, her eyes wide and bright, brimming over with childish wonder. “Hi, daddy.” In her hands she held a small bunch of dandelions, leaves and daisies. Holding them up for her fathers approval, she chances a look down and spies something blueish-black and glossy laying in the grass. “Ooooo. Wait! It’s not finished.” Her father laughs heartily as she reaches her small hand out and grabbed the magpie feather. Eagerly shoving it into her fisted bouquet as she scrambles up, her mouth widening into a beaming smile, stumbling as she stands. “Look. I made mommy a bunch of flowers. Will you help me put them in water for her?”_

_The man smiled softly at the little girl, his eyes warm and loving. “That sounds like a very nice idea. Mommy will love them.” He lowered himself to his knees, brushing away the smudge of dirt streaking her nose. “You know what would also be a nice surprise for mommy?”_

_“No, daddy. What?”_

_“Well,” He moves on to brushing down his daughter’s clothes. “I was thinking that later, you and me could make dinner together for her. I’ll cook and you can boss me around and be my little taste tester, make sure I don’t burn anything. What do you think, sound good?”_

The eyes behind the flickering lashes dart rapidly, pupils dilating and constricting as they follow the images that her resting mind conjured. With soft little breaths trembling over her lips, the sleeping girl burrows deeper beneath the blankets and shifts onto her hip and the scene in her brain morphs into something new. Content and sighing, her fingers flex and curl before she settles into peaceful slumber once more.

_“Daddy, I-I don’t think I can do this.” She screws her eyes shut tightly, her fists curl around the textured grip of the bicycle's handlebars, clinging on for dear life. One leg straining as her foot propped and held the bike upright. It was heavier now, without the training wheels, and she struggled to balance with her other foot sitting atop the highest peddle. “This is scary. Wh-what if I fall?”_

_Her father leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to the back of her head, soothing his daughter’s nerves with affection. “You’ll be alright, Princess. I got you.” He wiggled the back of her seat until she giggled, letting her know that he had hold of her. “I promise, I won’t let go until I’m certain you won’t fall, ok? I won’t let my little girl get hurt if I can stop it. Now, are you ready?”_

_The girl nodded her head, her soft features hardening with determination._

_“Ok. On three, you peddle. One…” His daughter tightens her grip as he loosens his._

_“Two.” Her brow furrows as his eyes soften._

_“Three!” He smiles as she pushes off, determined, the seat slipping out of his fingers with barely a wobble. “You got this! You’re doing great!” She starts to turn her head to peer back for him, not noticing how her balance wavered, but he calls out to her, cheers for her. His warm, comforting voice booming through his cupped hands. “Don’t look back! Just keep going forward! Keep peddling!”_

Slowly, the scenario in her mind changes again. Though where as the previous dreams had been bright and warm, full of golden light and smiles, this new one brought with it a shadows and chills and washed out hues. Her heart, having previously maintained a steady and rhythmic thumping, now flutters and leaps around in her chest. Her soft easy breaths, once shallow and light, now tremble on every inhale and carry with it a soft whimper on her exhale. Her youthful features, pinched and tightened, look almost pained, as the images behind her eyes morph and swirl into nightmares.

_“Dad?” The girl is older now, a preteen. Her features caught in that awkward, in between stage of childhood and puberty, somehow still managing look both a little too squashed and a touch too stretched on her face at the same time. Her eyes, less soft but still wide and childlike, mist over with sorrow. “Why did that man hit you? We didn’t do anything to him, so why would he do something like that?”_

_Her father doesn’t look at her, but she can see that he is angry. Furious. It’s in the way that his bruised eyes narrow and how his bloodied lips press together in a thin, tight line. How he refused to shift his gaze, firmly maintaining his glowering at the road ahead and ignoring the girl he would see in the rear-view mirror._

_The girl licks her lips thoughtfully, considering her options to garner a response from her parent, and presses further with a question. Her curiosity getting the best of her. “What does that word he said mean?” She glances to the rear-view and freezes. Now she can see a narrow strip of her father’s face, the cold fires smouldering in eyes carved from stone and her belly squeezes tight. Was he angry with her? Why? She didn’t understand. Her voice quivers in her throat, words soft and small, but still she quietly mumbles them. “It didn’t sound like a good word. It sounded mean.”_

_Still her father said nothing to her. Instead, he simply tightened his teeth and set his swelling jaw. Slowly sliding his focus back to the road with his knuckles tightening and bleaching around the steering wheel. The silence in the car grows heavy, choking, until the girls mother turns in her seat and addresses the child behind them. “It’s not, sweetheart. It’s a very, very mean thing to say to someone.”_

_“Oh.” The girl’s mouth turns down in the corners, her fingers fiddle with each other nervously. “So, why did he say it to me?”_

The nightmare has full hold of her now. Her resting mind has become her prison and not a refuge and, try as she might, the bars remain locked tight. Her breaths fall ragged from her lips as hot tears squeeze from between her lashes and roll to wet her pillow beneath her sleep tousled hair. Her legs kick and twist in her sheets as her short nails grasp and tear at her comforter, her mouth just barely parting as a soft trembling cry calls out into the darkness. 

“Daddy?”

_“You can’t be serious?!” Her mother’s high, shrill voice makes her head hurt and her stomach knot. Her parents were fighting again. They fought more and more nowadays and usually it was always about her, she just didn’t know why. But they were always careful to fight only when they were sure she was out of earshot, tucked away upstairs and doing her homework, not sitting on the stairs. But today was different, her father had gotten angry with her, she didn’t know what she’d done, and the fighting began almost the instant that she had fled the room. “Those summer camps are cruel and barbaric! You can’t do that to her, she’s your daughter!”_

_“That’s the only way they’ll allow us back into the congregation!” Her father’s words slurred and the teen on the stairs winced. He’d been drinking again. She hated when he drank. “Fix her and prove our devotion.”_

_“Fix her!? She doesn’t need fixing, there’s nothing wrong with her!” She can hear her mother crying now. Sobbing and wailing how only a broken mother could. “Good Lord, she’s a child! She’s your child! She’s already confused and doesn’t understand what’s happening. She doesn’t need to be sent away and punished for being who she is. She needs her father to tell her that he loves her, that everything will be alright, like he used to do.”_

_There’s a crash. Glass shattering and a terrified yelp of pain and then quiet sobbing as her father’s voice drops down low and dark and dangerous. “What that girl ‘needs’ is to get her ass beat! Slap the queer right out of her head. I didn’t father a fucking dyke!”_

_The teen cringes. It’s that word again. The one that people spat at her. The one that her mother had told her was so, so mean… but, if that were true, then why was her father using it against her too?_

_“She’s your little girl, your little princess. She loves you. You can’t-”_

_A sharp bark of bitter laughter punches through the air and almost deafens the girl as she presses the heel of her palm to her eyes, wiping away the sudden wetness dotting her lashes. “Well, I don’t love her! She’s not my princess, not anymore!”_

Violet’s eyes snap open, her body hurling her from her twists of sheets, the harsh bite of her father’s voice ringing in her ears and a whimper stinging her throat. It was just a dream, a nightmare. They always came to her worse after being with Minnie. But the shortage of breath and rising feeling of dizziness mocks her childish rejections of what she is very aware of being more than a simple nightmare. Shaking fingers rake through knots of messy blonde hair and pluck at sweat drenched cotton sticking to her skin as her heart thunders in her ears and her stomach clenches down hard around a wave of nausea.

She felt sick. Felt her squashed down emotions writhing behind her ribs and clawing at her gut. Like she had swallowed some nightmarish creature and now it was tearing her insides apart and howling in her brain, desperate to escape her prison of flesh. Reaching beneath her pillows, Violet feels the familiar silkiness of the rainbow fabric hidden away. Carefully, she glances over to her new roommate, ribbons of curls tumbling and tangling over her sleeping face. She waits a moment, then two, wary that Clementine might be faking her slumber, but when the girl simply sighs through her nose and burrows deeper into her blankets, Violet is fairly confident that she is truly deeply asleep.

Drawing the bundled pride flag from its hiding spot, the blonde shakily unfolds it, her touch gentle in their caution as she carefully removes the old creased and dog-eared polaroids from its center. Shifting her sit from legs out in front to folded indian style, the blonde teen slowly wraps the fabric around her shoulders, draping it over herself like a cape, like a child would when playing at being a superhero.

One balled fist, wrapped up tight around a bottom corner of the colourful fabric, makes its way to Violet’s mouth. Her teeth pinch and nibble at the frayed edges as her other hand shakily spreads the trio of polaroids in front of her. She then grabs for her cellphone, unlocking the battered device and switching on the flashlight app. Now bathed in light and exposed to the world, the images etched into the glossy paper cause her heart to jam up in her throat while simultaneously dropping through the floor.

Each creased picture shows a father and daughter in different scenarios, each one happy and loving. In the first image, a golden haired toddler sleeps peacefully, sippy cup dangling from limp fingers as she nestles deep in the crook of her fathers arm. His half lidded eyes, full of warmth and parental love, shine with pride as he watches the infant sleeps safely within his grasp. The next shows the little blonde girl, no older than six, seated upon a powder blue bike. Green eyes dancing as she beams with pride, while her father kneels behind her. His hands each holding a newly removed training wheel high above his head and his mouth is home to an even wider smile than the child's.

The final photo shows the blonde, almost a teen, seated at the table, a tacky paper hat seated upon her head. Poker straight hair, shimmering like golden silk, sits tied in a low ponytail at the nape of her neck. In front of her is a home made lopsided chocolate cake with ‘Happy 12th Birthday, Princess’ piped out in white frosting. The last birthday before things changed forever.

Violet blinked hard, tears welling and turning her vision watery as she flips the picture over. She can feel the muscles in her chin trembling, like a child trying to hold in their tears and hide their distress. And the first stirrings of the little hiccuping sounds that she has always made whenever she cried have begun to tickle in her throat. She blinks furiously fast, a vain effort to clear her vision enough for her to read the scrawl written on the back.

_“Happy Birthday, Violet. You’ll never be too big or too grown up to be my little Princess.”_

Brick by brick her walls, the walls that hold her up and hold everyone else out just... collapse. Moment by moment, and tear by tear, they fall around her, making her feel vulnerable and horribly exposed. Without the walls to protect her there was nothing left for her to hold onto, nowhere for her to hide. She can no longer pretend that nothing hurts her. Everything hurts, there’s not a moment that passes where she doesn’t feel like she’s being flayed alive.

Folding her arms around her knees and pressing her eyes to the backs of them, her whole body shakes as she stifles her sobs into her thin cotton pants. So lost in her tears and adrift in her misery, Violet doesn’t hear the gentle stirrings of the brunette in the bed across the room. Doesn’t notice when the girl props herself up with her elbow, wiping away sleep crusted in the corners of her eyes before turning them to her.

“Violet?” The sleep rough voice pierces the heavy blanket of grief enveloping the blonde’s mind. The girl freezes even as she sucks in a sharp, bubbling gasp before Clementine continues sleepily. “Are you ok? Why are you crying?”


End file.
